


The Things That Make This Home

by TetrodotoxinB



Series: Bad Things Bingo 2018 [6]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Episode: s05e07 Ina Paha (If Perhaps), Everybody's got a reason to cry, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Refs to non-con drug use, So much comfort, Square filled: Troubled fetal position, Torture Recovery, Whump, emotional distress, lots of hugs, post episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 23:05:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15350721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TetrodotoxinB/pseuds/TetrodotoxinB
Summary: After Steve is released from the hospital, Danny stays with him. But not all of the drugs that Wo Fat used on Steve are out of his system.A follow up scene after Wo Fat tortures Steve (again).





	The Things That Make This Home

**Author's Note:**

> Created for Bad Things Happen Bingo. Square filled: Troubled fetal position.

“How you feeling?”

“Danny, I’m fine. You asked me that twenty minutes ago.”

Danny put their dinner plates down on the coffee table and sat beside Steve. “Am I not allowed to be concerned for you now? I realize that I wasn’t tortured, but maybe what I saw was a little traumatic for me, too. Maybe I’m asking if you’re okay for my own state of mind. Did you think of that?”

Steve smiled and then winced as he leaned forward to pick up his plate. “You’re right. I’d probably be a little upset if our roles had been reversed.”

“Oh, just a little?” Danny asked around his mouthful of linguine and homemade carbonara. “I’m glad to know that my physical and psychological well-being ranks so high.”

Steve chuckled and rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do,” Danny said affectionately.

Steve smiled shovelled another forkful of pasta into his mouth. “This is so much better than hospital food, “ he said after swallowing.

“Of course it’s better than hospital food. This is my mother’s recipe. What are you trying to say?”

Danny continued muttering as they ate, but he scooted closer and closer until he was pressed up against Steve from shoulder to knee, their feet propped up on the coffee table while they watched some awful home renovation show on mute. Steve was tired. A night in the hospital on several IVs meant to rehydrate, bump up his electrolytes, and flush out whatever drugs Wo fat had given him hadn’t done a helluva lot for his energy. So between the exhaustion and the hefty dose of painkillers that Danny forced into him with his dinner, Steve was out like a light a before they reached the end of the first episode.

*****

Danny had, at some point, slung an arm around Steve’s shoulders and fallen asleep on him. Steve smiled as he woke up with Danny’s warm weight safe and comforting against his side. His waking in the hospital had been less than stellar — the pull of the medical tape against his arm reminding him of Wo Fat’s IVs and drugs, and the stink of industrial cleaning chemicals from the gown and bed linens reminding him of the dry cleaners.

He’d woken with a start, gasping and shouting and pulling at the tape on his hand. Danny had been there to calm him down, to reorient him to the here and the now, but not before he pulled the IV and wrenched his cracked ribs again. 

Waking up to Danny lying against him wasn’t like that at all. The place smelled of home, and the hair products that were being mashed into Steve’s face smelled of Danny. There was no mistaking the sofa in his living room for some dirty backroom in the warehouse district. But the relative comfort of his own home didn’t alleviate the horrible crick that he’d developed in his neck after what felt like several hours on the sofa. 

Steve stretched and yawned, trying to not wake Danny, but ultimately failing.

“Hey, babe. Feeling better?” Danny mumbled as stretched too. 

“Yeah, I do. Got a crick in my neck, though. Think I can talk you into rubbing it?” Steve asked as they disentangled themselves.

“Sure,” Danny answered as he stretched. “Turn your back here.”

Steve rearranged as instructed and pulled his shirt over his head. With someone else Steve might not be so comfortable bearing both himself and the evidence of his recent torture, it was a little too vulnerable and raw. But no one knew Steve the way Danny did, and that aside, Danny had already seen it all when they’d found Steve. 

“You want me to rub those needlemarks or nah?”

Steve rolled his left shoulder experimentally. It was stiff, stiffer and a helluva lot more sore than the right. Whatever the hell that woman had injected him with — the tox screen still hadn’t come back on that just yet — had hurt like hell and left some pretty unpleasant knots in its wake. 

“Yeah, might as well.”

Danny started in without too much pressure, rubbing his thumbs in light circles at the base of Steve’s skull. His eyes fluttered closed as Danny worked and the headache that had been building began to recede. Slowly, Danny worked his way down Steve’s neck and down onto his shoulders. Steve hissed when Danny rubbed over the first puncture.

Danny paused. “Too much?” 

Steve swallowed and shook his head. “It’ll feel better once you work out the knots. It’s fine.”

“Yeah, alright.”

Steve dug his fingers into the couch cushions and swallowed the rest of his pained groans while Danny worked. By the time Danny was done, Steve felt light headed and somewhat disoriented. He blinked as Danny got up and then suddenly Danny was sitting in front of him on the sofa instead of behind. Steve shook his head and the fuzzy outline of Danny began to resolve into something with sharp colors and clear edges. 

“I think you need to rest some more,” Danny decided.

“Yeah,” Steve agreed, not entirely sure why he suddenly felt so tired after a nap but also not about to question Danny’s clearly concerned advice.

Danny got up from the sofa and leaned forward, gently pressing Steve back onto the sofa. “I can’t carry you up the stairs, you great big mook. Just lie here where I can keep an eye on you while I clean up the kitchen.”

Steve nodded absently and went where Danny pushed him, the sofa seeming to rush up at him and the room spinning as he leaned back.

*****

Danny had gotten dinner in the oven, done the dishes, run a load of laundry, and was just stepping out of the shower when he heard something crash to the floor. Still wet, he pulled on a pair of Steve’s board shorts that he’d snagged out of the dresser earlier. His gun was sitting on the vanity and he slipped it out of the holster.

The door to the bathroom swung open silently and Danny stepped out into the hall, clearing left and right before heading quickly down the stairs. He scanned the living room as he descended the stairs but Steve wasn’t on the sofa. The cup of water and the few odds and ends that had occupied the coffee table were on the floor. An end table, just this side of the cased opening to the dining room was overturned, its contents were strewn about the floor. 

The noise, like an animal rustling around — or a perp rifling through drawers, as the case may be — was coming from the vicinity of the dining room, but when Danny stepped through the opening, the room was empty, as was the study on his left. Danny turned right and stepped towards the kitchen.

From where he stood, the noise was easier to make out than it had been from upstairs. Bare feet scuffled against the tile floor, and there was the metal clanging of someone digging through the utensil drawer. The McGarrett’s were pretty well off, but even so their cutlery wasn’t anything worth lifting. 

Something, or rather someone, stumbled and landed hard on the floor. Danny listened as the person began shuffling until they bumped into a cabinet, the door rattling against the frame. 

“I- I want my dad. What- what are you doing to him? I’ve told you everything I know. Don’t- don’t...”

The sound of Steve’s slurred voice fell heavy on Danny as he stepped into the kitchen. He lowered his gun and set it inside one of the upper cabinets next to the cereal bowls, closing the door to keep it out of Steve’s line of sight. Steve was still staring into space, his eyes unfocused, and he hadn’t noticed Danny just yet.

A far cry from the sharpest or most dangerous weapon in the kitchen — Danny suspected that there was at least a sidearm and a K-bar somewhere in the room — Steve clutched a tiny paring knife in his fist. He cowered with his back against the cabinets, his arms in front of his face and his knees drawn up to his chest. 

“Hey, buddy,” Danny said quietly.

Steve’s attention shifted and he focused on Danny as if he was noticing him in the room for the first time. He shrank back, but held out the knife defiantly. His feet skidded against the floor as he tried to push himself back but the movement only served to overbalance him and he ended up on the floor, still curled up on himself. 

Danny stopped his incremental approach and instead sat, leaning against the island. 

“Steve, buddy, it’s me — Danny.”

“Don’t- don’t touch me, alright? I’m telling you the truth. Just please, please don’t hurt my dad,” Steve begged.

Danny ran a hand over his face and nodded, swallowing hard against the rise of bile that burned his throat. “I’m not going to hurt you. Wo Fat is dead. You’re at home. I know it probably doesn’t feel like it right now; the doc it might take a few days for whatever drugs they used to clear your system. But I need you to trust me, pal. It’s just me. It’s just Danno.”

Steve’s face pinched up just like it had in the dry cleaners when Danny had foolishly tried to explain that John was dead, and a small whimper escaped. 

“He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Danny nodded, heartbroken to have to shatter the one comfort that Steve had found in the drug induced haze. 

“Danny…” Steve sobbed.

Danny leaned forward with his hand out. “You gotta give me the knife, babe. I wanna help you, but you gotta give me the knife first.”

Steve blinked away the tears and looked at his hand in surprise, as though he hadn’t really expected to find anything in it. Then, slowly, he reached out to Danny. Finger by finger Danny loosened Steve’s hand until the knife slipped free and then he tossed it up into the sink. 

His right hand free, Steve immediately used it to push himself up to sitting. Once upright, his scooted himself into the corner again, both arms tight around his knees.

“Can I come over there?” Danny asked. 

Still curled on the floor, Steve’s eyes drifted back to middle space. Danny watched him and for a moment he thought he’d already lost Steve to the residual drugs that had temporarily sucked them both into this vortex of misery. But after a few seconds Steve nodded twice, jerky and stilted, but assent all the same. 

His chest aching with relief and anger, Danny slowly turned so that his back was against the cabinets. Then, with telegraphed movements, he began to scoot towards Steve. 

The moment he touched Steve, he flinched hard, and Danny watched as Steve forced himself to relax against the contact. They sat like that, shoulder to shoulder, until Danny’s butt started to go numb from the hard tile. 

“Hey, pal? I’ll stay with you all night if you need, but can we move this party to somewhere softer? My butt’s going to sleep.”

Steve snorted and then blinked, his momentarily amusement seemingly already overcome by his pain.

“Come on, pal. Let’s just make it to the sofa,” Danny coaxed.

Steve nodded and Danny scrambled to his feet, offering a hand to Steve. He staggered up and Danny put his hand on the small of Steve’s back, herding him back out of the kitchen and also managing to turn off the oven as they went. 

With a wince and a groan, Steve settled on the sofa and Danny crowded up beside him. Steve sighed and then slumped over, tucking his face against Danny’s neck. 

Steve sniffled as Danny carefully draped an arm over Steve’s shoulders. “Thanks, Danny.”

“Of course, babe. Whatever you need,” Danny affirmed, dropping a kiss into Steve’s hair. 

“Well, I think I’m gonna have to pass on you rubbing those knots again,” Steve said wetly.

Danny smiled around the knot in his chest. “Yeah, I bet. Guess we learned our lesson, huh?”

“Fuck,” Steve chuckled. “Yeah.”

“I’ll order us some pizza,” Danny declared. He could easily finish the dinner that he’d started earlier, but he’d have to leave Steve to do that and, Steve’s immediate needs aside, Danny wasn’t eager to be out of sight. 

“Pineapple and Canadian bacon,” Steve murmured.

“Uncultured swine,” Danny pronounced as he tapped the order into the app on his phone. 

Steve sniffled, pressing in closer against Danny. Danny finished the order and tossed his phone onto the coffee table. He lay back and pulled Steve down over him, wrapping both arms securely around Steve. 

“Come here, Steve. I got you, pal,” Danny coaxed. 

Steve practically melted onto Danny. Danny didn’t get much of a chance to see before they were settled, but the glimpse of Steve’s face told him enough. Tears streaked down his cheeks, and his eyes were red and bloodshot. 

When they had found him yesterday, Steve had bottled up all but the worst of his pain. Even having to grieve his father’s loss all over again, Steve only lost his composure for a few seconds. But healing, carrying a hefty sleep debt, and then inadvertently drugged again after breaking up the knots in Steve’s shoulders — he was too tired to hold it together any longer. 

While he cried, Danny held him — rubbing his back, running his fingers through Steve’s close-cropped hair, and murmuring reassurances in his ear. He wanted to tell Steve that it would be okay, but it was a lie. Doris, John, and Steve’s apparently adopted brother were all gone. There wouldn’t be any “making it okay.” There would be scraping together a new normal, there would be moving forward, there would be getting through it, but that was all there would be. It would never be “okay.” That’s not how death and torture worked.

Danny held Steve tighter and closed his eyes. His own hurts over Matty — only a couple of weeks past — mingled with his grief for Steve. Before long the pain coalesced, and the ache in his chest cracked open, silent tears rolling down his cheeks and landing uncomfortably in his ears. 

They’d get through it together. It’s what they’d always done, and what Danny, for his part, planned to do it until the day he died. 

The doorbell rang and Danny kissed Steve on top of the head one last time. “Come on, you big oaf. Pizza’s here.”

Steve crawled off of Danny and swiped at his cheeks as Danny paid the delivery man who looked spectacularly uncomfortable at the sight of two grown men crying. 

“I’m not hungry right now,” Steve said as Danny put the pizzas on the coffee table.

Danny nodded. “No, I know. Just eat a few bites, keep your blood sugar up, and then we can lay back down for a real nap.”

Steve nodded and gagged down a slice of pizza like he was still in basic training. Danny wasn’t hungry either, but he knew that his own lack of an appetite came from the same place as Steve’s so he choked down a slice of his own. 

“You alright for a moment? I’m gonna get us some water.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah.”

Danny patted his shoulder and hurried off to the kitchen. When he got back, Steve was still sitting with his elbows on his knees, looking empty-eyed at the carpet. 

“Drink this,” Danny ordered, handing over the glass. 

Steve obediently downed the glass in one long pull and then set it on the table. Danny sat down beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. 

“Come on. Lay down with me.”

Steve nodded and sniffled, going easily as Danny tugged him down. Danny got situated with Steve’s head pillowed on his shoulder, and his hilariously long legs sticking over the other arm of the sofa. Both of them were bent at strange angles to accommodate their chosen location. Danny knew they’d regret this sleeping configuration when they woke up with cricks and aches, but for the moment letting Steve squish the breath out of him soothed the worst and most persistent of Danny’s aches. 

Danny pressed his nose into Steve’s hair and breathed deep. He still smelled of hospital soap and betadine where his forehead was cleaned, but underneath that metallic tang, was just Steve. Home. Safety. Maybe a hint of work-related stress and a whiff of getting shot at repeatedly. But it was a smell that reminded Danny of just how lucky he was to have found a friend like Steve.

“Stop sniffing me, Danno. It’s weird. Go to sleep,” Steve mumbled.

“Shut up, alright? Just be glad someone wants to smell you.”

“I am, Danny. I’m always glad to have you.”

Danny choked for a second, the honesty in Steve’s voice almost too much. “I’m glad to have you, too.”


End file.
